What do East Hampton, Nantucket, Greenport, Port Jefferson, Northport, Hudson, and Cold Spring, N.Y., all have in common? They have all enacted legislation aimed at curbing the rise of so-called “formula” stores.
Sag Harbor is on the precipice of doing the same, but has reached out to community members in an effort to find the best solution. In a round-table meeting on June 10, the Sag Harbor Village Board and a room full of residents talked logistics.
Sometimes called chains, formula businesses have four or more locations, offer a standardized array of merchandise, have a trademark, use a standardized color scheme, have a standardized interior decor, and have an employee uniform. Businesses that meet two or more of the above criteria could fall under the formula definition, according to Rich Warren of Inter-Science, a firm charged with studying the matter for Sag Harbor Village.
That there is no simple answer to the issue seemed to be the feeling that ruled the evening. While East Hampton and Greenport have made formula stores a special permit use, Cold Spring, upstate, has banned the stores and restaurants outright. Port Jefferson does not allow formula restaurants, while Northport regulates the architecture of formula stores.
Most in attendance agreed that it is time for a conversation but not all agreed on an outright ban on the businesses, despite the hundreds of signatures a Save Sag Harbor petition garnered last month.
What the group did seem to agree on is that Sag Harbor should not become what Deputy Mayor Ed Haye called a “luxury monoculture, which it seems like East Hampton Village has become.”
Kevin Menard, a member of the Sag Harbor Chamber of Commerce and the owner of Dragon Hemp Apothecary, a herbal medicinals store on Main Street, said he does not think banning the stores is the answer.
Rather, he said, he welcomes an uptick in those stores, because bringing them and their customers to the village would drive traffic to his own shop.
Speaking on behalf of the Chamber of Commerce, he said the group is “pro-business” and against most regulation of businesses in the village.
Jesse Matsuoka, the manager of the Sen and K-Pasa restaurants, said legislation prohibiting them could have unintended consequences.
“If we jump into this . . . the small guys are definitely getting hurt,” he said.
Tracy Mitchell, the director of Bay Street Theater, agreed. “It would be a bad spiral downwards,” she said. “Arts institutions would not survive.”
However, Ms. Mitchell said she has seen the effect of losing local mom-and-pop-type stores too, sharing her own experience. When the local shoe store closed, she said she had to travel to Bridgehampton to buy shoes. Since she was already there, she said she started doing her grocery shopping at King Kullen instead of Schiavoni’s on Sag Harbor Main Street.
The specter of the new Target in Bridgehampton, slated to open in the fall, but beyond the reach of any Sag Harbor legislation, “will hurt us,” Mr. Matsuoka said.
Mr. Warren called out both East Hampton and Southampton, each of which have bustling Main Streets in the summer but are largely abandoned by formula stores in the off-season.
“You don’t see a person on the sidewalk,” Mr. Warren said in his presentation, showing photographs of both villages in March.
In Sag Harbor, he went on the say, “during wintertime traffic is slower . . . but you still have year-round trade here.”
“Maybe we should put out a welcome sign and a not-so-welcome sign,” David Florence suggested, saying that the blend of businesses in the village is what really matters. “If you have 20 boutiques . . . do we want 30?” he asked.
Regulating that could be logistically impossible, it seems, but landlords could perhaps be incentivized to rent to year-round businesses.
Some questioned whether Sag Harbor could give tax breaks to landlords with year-round local businesses. Although, according to Elizabeth Vail, the village attorney, that would need state approval.
The conversation touched on the detachment of corporate retail to the community and the changes that Sag Harbor has undergone in the last decade.
“The community is changing,” Mr. Warren said, bringing up a photo of a full-page real estate ad with an array of luxury real estate in Palm Beach, Fla.
But to Mayor Tom Gardella, it seems the more things change, the more they stay the same. He said in 1986, when 7-Eleven came to the village, there were some who were outraged. “But over time, 7-Eleven became a very popular place . . . so popular, in fact, that we elected Bill Young [the franchise owner] as mayor of the village.”
When the store’s lease was not renewed in 2021 by the new owner of the property, Adam Potter, residents were shocked and saddened.
The mayor did acknowledge, however, that “we need to put guardrails in place.”
“We don’t want it to become Tanger 3,” he said, referring to the outlet center in Riverhead, “but we don’t want a ghost town either.”
It surprised some to hear that Sag Harbor, known for its smaller retail spaces and locally-owned shops, already has 44 so-called formula stores.
Many were mobilized by the seasonal closing of the Steve Madden store, which opened on Main Street last year and then closed up shop at the end of summer, covering its window in black with a “See you next spring” message.
“Steve Madden was a catalyst,” Bob Plumb, a board member, said at last week’s meeting.
Whatever started the conversation, those in attendance agreed that more study and conversation should be had. A second public workshop has not yet been scheduled. The study presented last week by Mr. Warren is available on the village’s website.
